


Deep

by Kattzr



Category: One Direction (Band), Zarry - Fandom
Genre: Angst, M/M, Realistic, Romance, Slow Build, Unresolved Sexual Tension, which may or may not resolve
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-05 22:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4197996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kattzr/pseuds/Kattzr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry was at the bottom of the swimming pool, looking up.  Bending around him he could hear the chat of the others, from the poolside where the floodlights had warped into irridescent loombands. If he could only stay down here, he thought.  Stay here where he didn’t have to define his feelings, or explain them, or start crying again.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Drowning

Harry was at the bottom of the swimming pool, looking up. Bending around him he could hear the chat of the others, from the poolside where the floodlights had warped into irridescent loombands. If he could only stay down here, he thought. Stay here where he didn’t have to define his feelings, or explain them, or start crying again.  
He was leaving. Zayn was leaving. It was definite now; Louis had said so, looking up from his phone and raising his eyebrows as he stared into the distance.  
Why couldn’t he feel like he normally did? Usually his feelings slipped away from him, like fish you were trying to grab with your bare hands. And the harder people pushed for his answers, his explanations, his love, the more those feelings would flee, chasing away into the waters of his unconscious. Not now. Now he felt heavy; like he would be drowned by the lead weight of regret that was growing inside him.

Faces were staring over the side of the pool; Harry had been at the bottom for a good minute. He could hear their words getting louder, their sentences faster and higher pitched. He didn’t care; wondered how long he could manage; whether he should just stay. His lungs pressed like deployed airbags against his ribs; his throat was tightening, urging him to take the next breath. As he was wondering whether he had the courage to drown himself, another face appeared through the ballooning water above him: dark hair, a stubbly beard, eyes like horizontal teardrops.  
Harry surfaced, inelegantly, with a gasp as loud as the cheer from his audience.

*

“It isn’t about… you know…. It isn’t anything to do with…” Harry scratched the back of his head “me, is it?”  
Zayn was sitting beside him; they were on a bench hidden by bougainvillea plants, explosions of reds and pinks made vivid by moonlight even though the blooms had long since closed. The sound of crickets hummed from the trees behind the villas. Zayn was sitting on the edge of the wooden seat, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped. He was looking into the distance where the others were talking with some of the other hotel guests, beside the pool.  
“Ah told ya, man. I need to spend time with Perray. Ah just… gotta get real, you know. Ah can’t do this any more.”  
“You can’t… you can’t do what any more? What, like – the band, the gigs, the travelling?” There was a pause. “Us?”


	2. Wanting

Zayn laughed.  Or at least it sounded like a laugh to Harry.  But he wasn’t sure.   It could have been a sharp exhale of annoyance or surprise.  It had a hard, almost bitter edge to it, Harry noticed.  But then Zayn was smiling.  It didn’t make sense.

Zayn cleared his throat and started shaking his head.  “Nah.  Thass ancient history, man.”  He put his hand on Harry’s shoulder, then slid it further, hooking his arm so that the crook of his elbow was around Harry’s neck.  He shifted so he was sitting right alongside Harry.

“Ah don’t think about it any more.  In fact, ah should thank you.”

“Why?”  Harry was starting to sniff again.

“Coz all that – all that _stuff_ – that stuff between you and me - it made me realise.  Made me realise I wanted to marray ‘er.”

Harry was silent.  He picked up a long, thin leaf that had been lying on the ground in front of him and twisted it around his fingers.   He thought about the time Zayn told him he that and Perry were getting engaged.  How he’d been silent then, as well.  At first.

“I don’t …. I just don’t.  I don’t want you to leave, is all,”  he stuttered, eyes fixed on the leaf rolled around his middle finger.”

Zayn coughed.  He fiddled with the gold necklace he always wore these days; tucked it back into his vest.

“The band’ll be fine.  You and the boys, you’ll be good.  You know that.”

“S’not just about the band.  Or the business.   It’s that I….me… _I_ don’t want you to leave.”

This time it was Zayn’s turn to be silent.  The strains of music from the DJ booth floated over the pool terrace:  the lyrics were hard to make out from this distance but the song was familiar enough for Harry to fill in the gaps:  _Only miss the light when it’s burning low / Only hate the road when you’re missing home._

 “Why?” Zayn whispered, finally.  “Why now?”  Then, before there was time for an answer, Zayn uncurled his arm from around Harry and stood up.   He took a step as if to leave, hands in the pockets of his basketball shorts, eyes downcast, kicking at the ground.  “Don’t start this, Harry.  It’s always the same.”

Harry wiped his eyes, and sat straight.  He started to say something but Zayn was quicker:

“You only ever want what you can’t have.”

Harry watched as Zayn walked into the distance, head low and high-tops scuffing at the paving stones that were bathed in pale blue light.


	3. News

I was at the gym when I found out.  It sounds glamorous but it’s actually just the leisure centre near my mum’s where they let you use their row of ancient cardio machines if you have a student card.  I had pounded my way to 400 calories in front of the one TV screen; and if it hadn’t been stuck on Sky Sports I would have known sooner; and if my phone hadn’t died just before my workout I would have known sooner still.  Instead I saw the headline on someone else’s phone, which I was looking at over their shoulder as I stirred my post-workout Americano in the canteen that overlooks the swimming pool. 

I stopped stirring.

 

*

 

I punched my way out of the double doors, ignoring the receptionist’s robotic “thank you, gdbye”.  My stride was faster than it had been on the treadmill ten minutes earlier.   Head down, my gaze tracked the pebble-dash paving; I couldn’t work out where to go but I knew I had to get there fast. 

“Whur – Whoah!” 

My bowed head had made contact with someone’s chest – or more precisely their tracksuit top.  I stopped, hit reverse and looked up.  We both spoke at the same time.

“Sophs!” (me)

“Riss!” (her)

“What’re you doing here?” (me)

She had grasped my wrists in the manner of someone comforting a mourner at a funeral.  She looked into my eyes.  It was so melodramatic that I had to laugh.  And then the laughter turned to something else and I was wiping my eye.

“You know.”

I nodded.

“I was just at your mum’s – she couldn’t get hold of you so I just thought I’d come here and see if I could find you.”

 

*

 

We sat in the park alongside the leisure centre, on the bench near the tennis court.   It was cold but we had to sit there because Sophie said she had to have a cigarette in memory of him.  As if he’d died.

“Since when did you start smoking?”  I said, tucking my hands between my knees to keep them warm.

“Around the time you stopped shipping them,” she smiled.

“So I cured my addiction and you acquired one” .  I rolled my eyes.  Sophie laughed as she tapped ash onto the ground and bounced a crossed leg to keep warm.

“I knew he would leave”  she said, on the inhale.

“Everyone knew,”  I said.

“But it’s like – ma mum said when ma granddad died – and he’d been ill for, like, ages – she said it was still a massive shock.  Like she never actually believed that one day he’d be gone.”

“I know.  I’m gutted.  I just –“  I put my head in my hands and, for reasons I couldn’t explain, I started to sob.  How could someone leaving a boyband – a band that I didn’t even follow any more – hurt so much?


	4. Swansong

_We messed around…_

When I was done crying Sophs and I walked back as far as the bus stop. 

“Whatcha gonna do now?” she said, looking at me like I was a five year old kid who’d just grazed her knee.  Some role reversal.

“Dunno”  I said, staring out at the clouds over the recreation ground .  The sun’s light was watery; fading into the early April evening. 

But I did know.   I knew exactly what I was going to do.  I was going to go online; contact people.  People like me.  People who understood.  Ok, so Sophie understood.  She’d been a Directioner; back in the day, when we were still at school.   And even after that.  But she had never been a Zayn girl.  And she was never a Zarry shipper.   She never got that bit about me.  Said it was just too weird.

“Ok Miss Misery,” she said, putting her arm round me again and giving my back a rub.

I pulled away smiling, rubbing my gloved hand across the damp streak on my cheek.  “It’s all your fault, remember?” I said. “You got me into them in the first place!”

*

I was remembering.

On the Zarry tag, old favourite youtube channels, watching the foetus clips, from those days when the boys’ arms were still an unblemished,  perfect tan, and when Harry used to rub both hands in his hair like he was washing it before he swept it sideways.  The days when Zayn used to look at Harry in pure wonder.  The day when Harry said he missed Zayn’s eyes.

*

Harry was remembering too. 

Sat in his villa, playing with the tiny shells that fringed the drapes around his bed.  

_We messed around until we found…_


	5. Sleepless

 

_…until we found …..the one thing_

It was 2am and Harry couldn’t sleep.   Remembering.   How it started. 

_He’s just pretty isn he_? 

_The sexy curly haired one_.   

The tmh tour: wild, intense flirting.  Which Harry didn’t admit to himself was even that.  It just seemed like he and Zayn were having fun, at the time.  More fun than he’d ever...  Smiling all the time around him. His smile, mirroring back. Touching him at every chance.  Kisses; of course Harry had denied it when Louis pointed out that he always seemed to be kissing Zayn.  Well, he wasn’t allowed to kiss Louis any more was he?  So who else was he going to kiss?  And no, of course there was _nothing in it_ … 

 

 And then he knew what it was; that it wasn’t just having fun - because something changed and jealousy clutched at his insides like an icy hand :  sudden and unexpected and out of nowhere.  Zayn brought Perry over to join him on tour.   And Harry could no longer tell himself that it didn’t matter, that she was another one of those girlfriends who would _amount to nothing_.  Like his always did.  And misery took over; and he didn’t know how to be any more.

Then when Perry left, and Zayn was quiet and thoughtful and self-sufficient and didn’t seem to need Harry any more, Harry had tried to bring those magical moments back.  But Zayn was distant: far away even when he was seated right next to Harry. 

That was when Harry had made up his mind to forget about Zayn.  Because Harry didn’t like feeling tied to someone.  It wasn’t like him to be jealous; _he_ made other people jealous.  Not the other way round.  That was how it was.

_Oh yeah, Styles_ , he thought, staring up at the mosquito net that he was supposed to have untied so it fell softly around the four poster.  _That was how it **was**.  Just look at yourself now_.

He drew in a deep breath and exhaled hard through his nose, ran both hands through his hair that was still clumping together from the pool’s water.  He looked at his phone.  2.30 am.  He wished he could feel tired.  Wished he could forget this… shit.  Could forget _him_.  But he couldn’t .  It would be like _trying to know somebody you never met_.  He smiled at the words; they had just appeared in his head.

 

Villa 9.  That was Zayn’s.  Harry had made sure he remembered it, when he saw the number carved on the wooden keyring that Zayn had been turning over and over in his hand earlier that evening  - when Harry had no choice but to stick around talking in a group with him and Ben and Lou… when all he had wanted to do was to get Zayn on his own….

 

Villa 9.  He could go there now.  Tell him.  Talk to him again.  Maybe even… 

 

Harry chewed on his thumbnail, shook his head.  Stupid idea.  He looked around.  Everything was white in his villa.  Well everything that wasn’t wood.  And the lights inside were so bright and there were no dimmer switches, so that the whiteness glared at him and kept him awake and the only alternative was to turn the light out completely and then it would be dark… dark and velvety with only the moonlight and the whirr of crickets and the soft swish of the waves, and that would be too...

He looked back, caught sight of the bottle of beer still on his bedside table. 

He reached out to it and took a drink. 

 

_… the one thing….we could never ever…_


	6. Last Chance

 

_…we could never ever live without…_

 

Two bottles of beer later, Harry was looking at his phone.  No point in trying to go to sleep, he’d reasoned.  There was a text from Louis that he hadn’t even got around to opening.  He was looking at his phone now just to distract himself from all the self-pity and that was when he found it.  And opened it, three hours late.

  _Apparently Z has a flight home booked for tomorrow pm. Simon just told me. L x_

 What???

 Harry’s mind raced.  His vision blurred as tears swum across his eyes.  He blinked them back, tried to read the text again.  Surely he hadn’t read it right.

 But he had.  Tonight was Zayn’s last night.  Now.  Here.  The last time they would be together as a band. 

 Harry’s last chance.

And now, all the thinking about whether he should go to Zayn’s villa, whether he dared visit him, what excuse he could make up to do that: all those things were no longer relevant, swept aside by the urgency of seeing him, of telling him _now;_ now that there was no more time.

Harry stopped; hesistated.  He looked down at the robe he’d grabbed from the ensuite.  When he’d meant to hve a shower and then forgot.  What was he going to wear?  He cursed under his breath.  Why was it so f-ing important, he thought to himself, always so f-ing important to him that he look good in front of Malik.  He pulled on a white t-shirt; board shorts.  It would do.  No time for anything more.

 

*

 

He was walking; hurrying along the paved walkway that linked the low cabana-style buildings; through air still thick with heat and the heavy scent of tropical flowers.    Should he break one off and take it with him?, he wondered.   No.  That would be confessing too much.

 Harry kept his steps as quiet as possible as he passed Niall’s villa.  From behind the villas he could hear the low whirr of the pool filter.  Far away a dog barked. 

 Number 9.  Harry hesitated as he stared at the gold number on the dark wooden door. 

 He knocked.   Waited.   No sound from inside. 

 He knocked again. 

 Soft, irregular footsteps, behind the door.  A moment’s silence, then the slow metallic clicks of a handle’s mechanism.

The door opened.

 

_…I’m not allowed to talk about it…_


	7. Opening

… _but I gotta tell ya…._

Sleepy, dark eyes, barely open.  Hair falling over half his forehead. That vintage Rick Springfield 84 tour t-shirt.  Oh, the irony, thought Harry, in the two seconds he had before Zayn spoke.

“Hazza… what the fuck, man…?” Zayn was saying, swaying slightly and propping himself against the edge of the open door, “what time is it?”

Harry had edged himself up against the door frame, into the shadow cast by the villa’s porch and out of the moonlight where someone might see him.

“Late…I know.  I’m sorry,”  Harry said.  “Can I come in?  I really need to talk to you.”

Zayn swayed back against the wall of the villa’s entrance hall, waved a hand towards its interior.

“Sure, man.”

Harry walked in, turning into the small sitting room and stopped, standing, arms crossed, shivering a little as the tropical heat gave way to frigid aircon.  Moonlight slanted onto the polished wood floor through the half-open slats of the window blind.   Zayn flopped onto the couch that stood against the wall, lying back at first, as if he would fall asleep there, then pulling himself up straight, as if he had thought better of it.  He took a deep inhale, rubbed his hands up and down his face.

“So – shoot, bro.  Wha’ is it?”

Harry chewed at a fingernail.  He shifted from foot to foot.   Now that he was here, he didn’t know how to say it.

“Siddown, man”  Zayn waved a hand towards the opposite sofa.  Harry stayed standing.

“I heard you’re going home tomorrow. ”  Harry’s voice wavered.   “Louis told me.”   

Zayn shifted forward, so he was sat on the edge of the seat, resting his elbows on his knees.  He looked down at the ground.  Then up at Harry. 

“Yeah. I am.”

Harry nodded, then turned around, away from Zayn’s sight.  He walked , two steps, towards a bookshelf that stood in the corner of the room.  There were actual books on it.  For a moment he wondered why a hotel room would have a shelf of books.   But the distraction only worked for so long.  He could only place a mental pile of books between him and Zayn’s leaving for a second or two before its imaginary firewall would crumble to dust.   He closed his eyes. 

 

“Mate…”  He felt a hand on his upper arm, gently pulling him.  Harry turned and Zayn’s arms hooked around him – one over his shoulder, the other under his arm and they pulled close and Harry felt Zayn’s warm chest against his own.  For a second Harry buried his face into the shoulder of Zayn’s t-shirt.  He inhaled the familiar smell  - cinnamon and lemon, it always reminded him of – and the memories came flooding back.   But then he noticed that Zayn’s t-shirt was growing damp under his cheek.  Harry pulled back.

“Jeez, don’t cry man. ”  Zayn kept his hand on Harry’s shoulder as he said it, frowning at his bandmate in concern.  For a moment Harry searched Zayn’s soft, liquid-bronze gaze, longing to lose himself in it.  

Embarrassed, Harry broke eye contact, looked down, sniffed.  Words flashed through his mind: _Now.  Now or never_.

“I love you"

He had said it.  There was a moment of silence in which Harry studied the floor, the stripes of moonlight which formed angles with the dark floorboards.  A moment of agony; a moment in which he dared not look up at Zayn.


	8. Looking for Clues

_…but I gotta tell ya…._

 

“Ah love you too, man.  Ah love all of you guys.  You know that.”  Harry could hear the smile in Zayn’s voice, it wavered on the edge of a laugh, as if it was ridiculous that Harry had to tell him he loved him.  Cos they were all brothers, weren’t they? 

Harry looked up briefly, then down again.  He was right: Zayn was smiling.  Harry folded his arms, rocked back and forward on his toes.

“I don’t mean it like that.  I mean I’m – I’m… “ 

S _ay it,_ Harry told himself _._

 “I’m _in love_ with you.”

There was a pause.  For the first time Harry noticed the sound of a clock ticking. It was coming from the kitchen.   

“What?” 

“I’m in love with you.”

Zayn laughed. 

“Yeah, Haz.  Sure.”

Harry frowned.   “Why don’t you believe me?”

“You know…. you said that once before to me, Harreh.  Remember?  You didn’t mean it then and you definitely don’t mean it now.”

Harry frowned. 

Zayn was right about one thing: he had said it - once before.  That night – drunk, in a hotel  – that night, two years ago.

That night he could never get out of his mind.

 

*

 

“He’s released a song, you know.”  Chloe was face-timing me.

“Already?  But didn’t he say he wanted to be a normal twenty-two year old for a while?”

“Yeah, cos we _all_ go round releasing songs with world-famous producers don’t we?  I just did one on my way to work today doncha know?”.  She giggled.  I thought how much Chloe had changed since she left school.  Time was she would never have criticised anything one of the boys did.  Mind you, Zayn wasn’t really one of them any more, was he?   I shuddered, took a big breath in.  _Not one of them any more._ How could that be??  It just didn’t compute.   He used to be everything to me.  Everything.   But I’d had to grow up; had to forget.  Thing is -  if I was totally honest -  right now I was hurting for Harry more than I was hurting for me.  Because I knew what Zayn meant to him.  You might not believe me, but I can tell you:  _I knew._   

 

*

 

Zayn was walking in a circle now, pacing.  The smile had gone.  He ran his hand through his hair, stopped, closed his eyes.

“I can’t have this conversation, Harreh.   You shouldn’t be here.  What if someone saw you  – coming here, in the middle of the night? You know how rumours start.  I gotta think about Perrie now, man. Gotta do right by her. “

Harry wiped at his tears with the back of his hand.  So this was it.  This was what rejection felt like.  He felt suddenly sorry for all the people he’d done it to before.  It was like all of a sudden he could   _understand_ why the girls took it so hard.  And he’d convinced himself that he always did it so nicely; let them down _gently_ ; and that made him a _nice guy_.   _It’s just not the same for me any more_ , he would  say; _or if it wasn’t for the tour_ ;  or his favourite: _I gotta prioritise the band right now._ In this moment, with Zayn standing at right angles to him, staring at the half-light from the window, Harry saw that the niceness; the sensible, rational explanation – the smoothing things over - : well, that just made it worse.  Cos it was still being dumped.  Only it was being dumped by committee. 

 

His tears were giving way to anger.  Resentment.  _Maybe that’s what being dumped does to you_ , he suddenly realised.

“Is that it, then?  You go your way and we… carry on touring; maybe bump into each other now and then at some fucking awards show??  Is that how it’s going to be?  After four and a half years??”

Zayn shook his head as if Harry were a small child throwing toys on the floor.

“What do you want, Harreh?  You knew it was getting hard for me.”

“But why?  I know you were missing home an all…. We all have those times when it’s too much; when we feel like jacking it in.  Why is it harder for you than the rest of us?  You’re…. like, the most talented singer out of all of us…you’re so effing hot that you don’t have to move a muscle for girls to want you; you’re stylish…. can’t take a bad picture… and cool as - as _fuck_.  We _all_ covered for you when you didn’t want to answer interview questions.  What makes it so much harder for you??”

It was Zayn’s turn to be silent.  Awkward.  He looked at Harry, chewed his lip, dropped his gaze.  He drew in a breath, long and deep.

“I shouldn’t say this… I don’t really wanna talk about it…now… s’just….  I’ll explain, mate.  One day soon, I promise.  You’ll…. you just have to keep your ears open.”

Harry stared at him. 

“Now please leave.  I’ve got a million things to do in the morning – and Perrie’s gonna call first thing.”

 

_Cos we are who we are…_


	9. Talk

"It isn't the band I'm worried about, to be perfectly honest with you".

 

Louis was stood, on the gleaming marble floor of the hotel reception, espadrilles white against the tan of his feet, hands in the pockets of his hoodie, cut-off jeans with edges as messy as his fringe. He was keeping his voice low, glancing this way and that, to make sure no one would overhear. He and Niall were waiting for the minibus to take them to the venue for rehearsal. The rest of the boys had already left.

 

"Whatr you worried about, then? Zayn? Is 'e ok?”

 

Niall thought for a minute. “Actually I don’t care.  I don’t’ care if ‘e’s ok or not right now."  Niall was kicking at the floor: short swings, as if at an imaginary soccer ball. 

 

"No, I’m certainly not worried about our resident Judas."  

Louis raised his eyebrows, turned his head to the right and then the left as if what he was about to say had great importance.   "It's Harry. I tell you, he's taking it _so_ badly, Niall. Literally - every time I see him, I can tell he's been crying." 

Louis nodded, raised his eyebrows at Niall and rose up and down on his toes as if he were warming up for the same soccer game.

 

Niall shook his head, looked over to where a white-jacketed waiter was pushing a tray table past the tropical plants that edged the indoor fountain. He turned back to Louis.

 "Mmm. Somethin' weird between those two.  Always has been. Love-hate."   

He looked at Louis.  "Doncha think?"

 

"Well, I think it's gonna be all-out hate now.  Once Harry gets over his tears."

 

*

 

**2013 – two years previously**

 

They came running, dripping with sweat, through the splashes of red and orange and sharp white that the spotlights cast over the stage. Clattering down the short metal staircase, into the dark cavern of Backstage below. Harry was pouring the remains of the water in his bottle over his head, his necklace held between his teeth, hair dripping onto his white tee, tanned skin shining through the fabric where the water made it cling.   Zayn followed close behind, mouth set in a totally different expression to the smile he had worn only moments before for the fans: flat, resigned.

 

Niall was crouching down, raking his hand through his hair. He looked up at Zayn.

"Cheer up, Wayno" he said, swiping at his bandmate’s leg with the back of his hand. "I thought it was a good one, considering we're a bit out of practice."

 

"Yeah, bangin audience," Louis said, between gulps.

 

Zayn was silent, banging a rhythm with his fists into his thighs, looking over at Harry. Harry could feel his gaze.  He could feel it all the time now.  It followed him around like a puppy.  Harry turned away, drank the last of his water.  He had to resist it; had to ignore those soft, dark eyes on him. He had promised himself he would be strong.  Because if he _wasn't_....

 

*

 

They were walking back through the endless, bleached-out corridors that warrened under the arena.  Niall walked with his head thrown back, an empty bottle of Lucozade Sport dangling from his fingers.

"What time's that thing tomorrow?" he said.

 The sound of his voice echoed off the flat walls and low ceiling, now so silent in contrast to the last two hours. Harry had his head down, thinking how his ears were still buzzing and wondering how long it would be this time before he could hear properly.  Zayn was in front of him, his stride smooth and easy - Harry always thought Zayn was so skinny that he seemed to float above the ground when he walked  – even today, after two hours on stage, he was betraying none of the deep-but-satisfying fatigue that was dragging Harry’s body downwards.  Harry kept looking at the floor in front of him so as to stop himself watching the back of Zayn's head:  that hair all dark and messy and alluring.  Christ, Harry thought.  Zayn was even attractive from behind.

 He suddenly remembered that Niall’s question demanded a response, which no one had yet given.

 "Err…dunno …Louis?", Harry said.

 "Premiere starts at eight, Si said. So we need to be at Modest by six. Pick-ups five I guess."

Thank God Louis always knew what was going on, Harry thought.

 "I'll make my own way," Harry said. "M stayin at Nick's right now."

 "He still in Soho?" Niall said.

 "Mmm-hmm."

 

 Zayn was swinging his arms in synch, clapping every time his hands met in front of him.  He started humming a song.  Harry didn't recognise it. 

 

"Always at Nick's…" Louis sing-songed the words, closed his mouth around the end of them in a resigned lip-press.

Harry looked at him.

"Nothing to say, Big Boy?"  Louis said, raising his eyebrows.  Harry recognised this Louis : it was the one that always seemed to be thinking “ _I know you too well, Harry_ ”, like your mum does.  But Louis didn't know everything.  Especially about his relationship with Nick.


End file.
